


Agent Rodgers, FBI

by Shutterbug5269



Series: Agent Rodgers [1]
Category: Castle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-05
Updated: 2012-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-05 16:31:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1825006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shutterbug5269/pseuds/Shutterbug5269





	1. Prologue

Alexis had been diagnosed with Leukemia when she was six years old.

The first thing the chemo did (aside from making her sick to her stomach) was make all of her red hair fall out. She tried to keep up a brave face through it all for her father, but the chemo tore though her already small body like wildfire. He had broken off his affair with Sophia Turner shortly after Alexis was diagnosed. She had been disappointed, of course, but she seemed to understand. His daughter had to come first.

During the next two years Richard Castle rarely left the loft except to take her to her oncologist's office for the routine injections. He wrote while she slept or played games on her computer. He had never been so timely with his manuscripts.

The first Derek Storm novel had come out to great fanfare. The release party had been one of the few that he had made since she was diagnosed, simply because for once she had been well enough to attend it with him. He had had a beautiful wig made that perfectly matched the color of her red hair and her makeup professionally done so she wouldn't feel self conscious at the party. He knew she didn't want anyone's pity. For a very brief time she was the bubbly little girl she used to be. Reveling in her father's success and all of the positive attention she received from the grownups in the room.

January 9th 2002

“Alexis!” Richard Castle yelled from the stairs, “Pumpkin! Time to get up sleepyhead!”

There was no answer.

Castle walked up the stairs, worry creeping into his voice. “Alexis!”

He took the remaining stairs two at a time.

“Alexis!”

When he threw open the door to her room, she looked for all the world like she was simply asleep, curled up in her bed a small smile on her gaunt little face. She had obviously slipped away peacefully in her sleep during the night. Her body was cold to the touch.

“Oh God, no please.. no!” he sobbed, as he pulled her to his chest, tears running down his face.

She was gone.

Her funeral a few days later was a small solemn affair, attended by only a few people he knew well. (Paula had worked her witchy PR powers and managed to keep the paparazi at bay) Among them was his mother, Martha, and Alexis' mother Meredith, bemoaning the fact that she was supposed to have visited the week before Alexis died but took a guest spot on a TV series instead. She broke down over her white marble headstone and wept uncontrollably. Richard didn't even have it in him to feel contempt for her any longer. Only a wave of intense pity.

 

* * *

For the next year after he had buried his daughter on that cold January day, he worked feverishly, tirelessly on the second, (and final) Derek Storm novel, Storm Fall. It released to massive accolades and fanfare as he announced his retirement from writing. It had the following dedication:

_For Alexis._   
_10/4/1994-1/9/2002_   
_Goodnight, my little angel._

Little did his multitudes of fans know that the day after she died he had his lawyer legally change his name back to Richard Alexander Rodgers, and had hers retroactively changed too. She had wanted her privacy in her short life, he would make certain she had it in death.

The week after the last book signing, he received his acceptance letter for the FBI training academy in Quantico, Virginia. He he booked a one way plane ticket to Richmond, locked the door to the loft and didn't look back.

* * *

February 14th 2006

FBI Special Agent Richard Rodgers hated Valentine's Day. It always seemed to remind him of his daughter, and all of the little things she used to do before she was diagnosed. He still kept the box containing everything she had ever made for him. On days like this he took the day off, got drunk and looked through them all. It always turned out the same way, he'd curse himself for keeping them, then very carefully pack them back in the box, and return it to the top shelf of the closet in his small Washington DC apartment.

He could afford a much bigger place, but he rarely touched the residual money from his books from Black Pawn Publishing. It kept the loft in NY paid for, as he would never give the place up, her memory would always be alive there. Besides, occasionally his mother or Meredith would need a place to stay when going to visit her grave. He lived meagerly on his FBI Agent's salary. It suited him now.

Tomorrow, he would have to sober up and start his first day as Special Agent in Charge of a newly formed serial killer task force. He'd be meeting his new partner, Jordan Shaw in the morning. She seemed like a pretty straight shooter, got top marks at Quantico and came highly recommended as a profiler. She had been in the Bureau longer, but he had spent his time out in the field chasing bank robbers, kidnappers, and terrorists while she spent most of hers in the behavioral sciences division. Had she spent more time in the field, he'd probably be reporting to her.

He'd be grooming her for his job before he was done. His quick rise in the Bureau had most people who knew him certain that somebody was “looking out for him” he had no idea who that might be, as he'd given up any belief in a higher power after Alexis died. It was in her memory that he took the most care in chasing down kidnappers of children. He owed her memory that much.

On his way to bed, he ran his fingers through the neatly trimmed Van Dyke beard he had grown to disguise his features after graduating from the academy. The last thing he needed was to be recognized for his former life as a best selling crime novelist. Too many of his academy classmates had asked about the resemblance. That life had ended with his daughter's.

He was done with it.


	2. Enter The Dragon

May 2nd 2007

Rick's former training officer, Jacob Newstead had come to see him a week ago. He had found a new lead, or so he said, about the actual killer of his partner, Robert Armen back in 1997. He had never believed that the man had been killed by Vincent Pulgotti. Killing a fed was just not the mobster's style, it would have been just too stupid a thing for an experienced mob hit-man to do, according to Jake. Especially so close to his own club, with cops and the FBI staking out his very doorstep.

Rick always humored his old friend when he came over. From personal experience, he knew that grief did funny things to people. 'Like run off and join the FBI', he thought sardonically to himself. The case had been closed almost air tight. Though a civil rights attorney named Johanna Beckett had certainly tried to get him acquitted. She didn't have too many fans in the FBI, for obvious reasons.

She may have even succeeded in getting him a new trial, had she not been subsequently stabbed to death in what the NYPD reported as an act of “random gang violence” in the same alley, on January 9th 1999. 'Three years to the day before Alexis died.' his grieving mind supplied. She'd left behind a husband and a 19 year old daughter for whom he had great sympathy.

Jake had gotten it into his head now that the Armen and Beckett murders were somehow connected by a shadowy figure in the underworld he nicknamed “The Ghost.” He had managed to get himself assigned to the FBI field office in New York City, and took a grade reduction to field agent and a pay cut to do it. He'd made little secret about what he was going to be doing in his spare time.

Nobody seemed to care if he wanted to commit career suicide chasing “ghosts” as long as he did his job, kept his nose clean and didn't embarrass the Bureau on his way out. For his friend's sake, Rick hoped he was right, that he would find some way to be vindicated. Maybe then he'd find some peace.

* * *

September 21st 2007

An article on page two of the New York Times read:

FBI Agent found dead in Washington Heights

FBI Agent Jacob Newstead was found dead last night  
in an alley in Washington Heights of an apparent self  
inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

According to sources within the FBI, the twice decorated  
agent had been greatly troubled by the death of his partner,  
Robert Armen who had been murdered in the line of duty by  
Mob enforcer Vincent Pulgotti in 1987.  
He left no known next of kin

Notably he was found in the same alley where the body  
of slain civil rights attorney Johanna Beckett was discovered  
in 1999. Her murder is still unsolved

* * *

Special Agent Richard “Buck” Rodgers (a nickname he got due to the high tech gadgets his section was famous for using and a passing resemblance to a bearded Gil Gerard) knew a whitewash when he saw one. There was no way Jake had killed himself. The phone message he had received from him the day before his death left no room for doubt as to his high spirits, he had been on to something, he'd said. The ghost had been somebody big, someone important in government circles. He was getting close to the truth, to a name. Obviously too close.

He had received a package from Jake that morning via messenger service that had removed all doubt. It was everything that his friend had uncovered. These weren't the crazy ramblings of an obsessed paranoid man. The notes were meticulously detailed, accompanied by copies of NYPD case files and photos where applicable. Jake had approached this exactly the way the man had taught him to investigate a case and document his findings.

Two names seemed to come up over and over again. NYPD Detectives Raglan and McCallister. The officers who had arrested Pulgotti. Also a large number of gangland kidnappings attributed to a group known only as “The Ghost Crew” a name awfully reminiscent of the nickname he had given to the unknown subject he was sure had actually been responsible for the Armen/Beckett murders.

He had even made a note that the coincidence of the name was probably just that, a coincidence. Rick had nearly forgotten just how good an agent Jake had been till he read that.

Rick ran every page of the files including the images thorough the document scanner on his computer, saved everything to a flash drive, then purged his hard drive of the information. In the morning he would dutifully turn over Jake's files to his superiors in the J. Edgar Hoover Building.

At least he could save his dead friend's reputation. Perhaps get a murder investigation going. He had all the proof he needed to show his friend had NOT killed himself.

Or so he thought, anyway.

 

* * *

November 29th 2008

FBI internal memo addressed to Special Agent Richard A. Rodgers:

Effective immediately your appointment as Special Agent in Charge of  
the Serial Murder Task Force is hereby rescinded. You are   
ordered to turn over all relevant materials pertaining to said office to  
Special Agent Jordan Shaw no later than end of business day 30 November 2008.  
You shall be placed on administrative leave without pay for 30 days pending  
formal review.

Cause cited: Dereliction of duty and insubordination


	3. Homeward Into Exile

**December 10th 2008**

It had been ten days since Richard Rodgers had surrendered his sidearm and credentials to the Director of Operations in the J. Edgar Hoover building. His repeated demands for an in depth investigation of Jake's death over the past year had obviously garnered him the attention of the wrong people. People placed highly enough to subvert standard due process protocols, remove him from his position and have him suspended from active duty. Possibly the same people who had killed Jake. His friend's downward slide in the Bureau hierarchy was now beginning to make sense to him. For now, unfortunately there was nothing for him to do but wait.

Waiting patiently had never been his strong suit, not when he was a little boy, not when he was playboy mystery writer Richard Freaking Castle, and most especially not now. He preferred to be busy these last few years. Too much idle time and he began to think about what was missing in his life. Namely a spunky little girl with wavy fire red hair...

“No!” He admonished himself quietly “I will not go there.. not tonight!” not realizing he had said the words out loud.

Christmas Eve was soon enough for that. The week between Christmas and New Year's Day, Meredith, his mother and himself would gather in the loft in New York. At least for one week he wouldn't have to mourn his baby bird alone. It had become a yearly event like clockwork. They'd get out all of her pictures, soccer trophies and assorted nicknacks, pass them around and remember the light that was now missing in their lives.

It struck him as odd that he no longer had a problem drinking himself into oblivion with his mother and his ex-wife (the former deep fried twinkie) when all three of them could barely stand to be in the same room together when Alexis was alive. In a strange twisted way he thought his little pumpkin would be secretly pleased that the three most important adults in her life could now get along, if only for a few days during the silly season mixed with shared grief and liberal amounts of alcohol.

Before he could become lost in his reverie, there was a loud knock on his door. He wasn't expecting anyone at this hour. He opened a drawer in his coffee table, slid out the .45 caliber Glock he kept there and chambered a round. Satisfied, he walked slow and quiet to the door, slid off the chain and cracked it open.

“Delivery for Richard Rodgers.” the bicycle messenger called out.

Rick engaged the safety on his Glock, slid it behind his back in the waistband of his jeans and tugged the back of his shirt down to conceal it. Seeing no sense in scaring the bejesus out of a poor guy who was just doing his job.

He opened the door the rest of the way and was greeted with a medium sized box wrapped in plain brown paper with a stylus and digital clipboard on top of it. He signed the form and tipped the messenger generously. The young man smiled broadly at the fifty dollar bill, blissfully unaware of how near he had come to being shot. When the courier left, Rick closed and locked the door. He sat down on his couch, unwrapped and opened the black pistol carry case inside to reveal his FBI issue Sig Sauer, his ejected full clip, FBI credentials and a note which read:

_The people you're hunting are not the only ones_   
_with resources. You have friends in higher places_   
_than you know. Your next assignment will set you on_   
_the right path. Keep digging._   
_R. A. Webb_

* * *

**January 2nd, 2009**

Richard Rodgers strode confidently out of the elevator into the 12th Precinct bullpen for the first time, with the confident swagger borne of years spent as a federal agent. He turned to a young female uniformed officer with short-cropped blond hair, whose name pin read Velasquez and tapped her on the shoulder.

“Excuse me Officer..um Velasquez is it?” he asked as a casual smile creased his lips (the kind he would have used in a past life at a book signing) “Could you direct me to the Captain's office?”

“And you would be...” Velasquez began to ask in a crisp professional manner.

He smiled a little more broadly, and pulled out his credentials, unfolding them crisply.

“Sorry officer, Special Agent Richard Rodgers, FBI. I have an appointment with Captain Montgomery.”

* * *

 

NYPD Captain Roy Montgomery was sitting at his desk looking over the day's activity logs, and personnel assignments when Officer Velasquez knocked on his doorway (his door was almost never closed) and poked her head inside.

“Captain, there's an Agent Rodgers here to see you sir.” she said with slight disdain, feds usually meant trouble.

“Send him in, Velasquez, I've been expecting him.”

The Agent who walked in the door did not present the appearance of the washed up burnout that his FBI personnel file had suggested. His suit and tie were crisply pressed and pin straight. He stood erect with none of gaunt bloodshot appearance one typically found in someone who had seen one crime scene too many. The feature that surprised him the most were his eyes.

Though the rest of his face and body language exuded an almost automatic warmth and good cheer, his eyes betrayed a deep seated sadness that he'd seen often enough as a homicide detective. This man had experienced loss on a deep personal level. Like part of his life, part of his soul was simply...missing.

The easy warmth of the smile he directed at Velasquez never made it to his eyes. He could tell that this was a man who at one time had not only smiled, but laughed warmly and often, but now could only pantomime the gestures, without the warmth that went with them.

He found himself feeling sympathy almost to the point of pity for the man, as his gaze shifted momentarily to the photos of his wife and kids on his desk. He found himself wondering whom this man had lost that had taken his inner warmth away.

He shook off the introspection, and disguised it as an up and down inspection of the man before him.

“So,” Montgomery finally stated, “You're our token fed.”

“I guess that's one way to put it,” Rick replied. The mirthless smile back again in full force.

“As it was explained to me, Captain, it's part of a proposed pilot program embedding a federal agent at the local level to be a liaison in times of necessity. If an incident should arise that's within federal jurisdiction or terrorist activity is suspected, either myself or Homeland Security Agent Mark Fallon would take point.”

“In a case where Agent Fallon, or another federal task force is in charge, I would act as your liaison within that command structure. Otherwise you are free to use me as a resource as you see fit. Consider me an additional detective that your operational budget doesn't have to pay for. I am one hundred percent federally funded.”

“Pardon me a moment, Agent Rodgers,” Montgomery said as he stepped around him and waved at someone behind him. “Beckett, in my office please?”

As the captain once again stepped back around his desk, Rick felt a presence approach him from behind. He turned around and his vision locked on a slender young woman with short auburn bobbed hair and green-flecked brown eyes. She was strikingly, simplistically beautiful.

Eight years ago he would have been quick with a witty come-on, but now he was more guarded more closed off. He waited for the Captain to make the introductions.

“Special Agent Richard Rodgers, meet Detective Kate Beckett”

Rick put his hand out automatically, the charming smile once again apparent. It was the boyish lopsided grin that had generally made all the fan-girls swoon, back when he was Rick Castle and his eyes knew how to carry warmth. She was unimpressed, but took his hand and shook it anyway.

The spark of electricity when her hand came into contact with his was so intense, it was all Rick Rodgers could do to keep from snatching it back as if burned. For a split second he felt something stir within him but then she pulled her hand back and it was gone.

“Beckett, meet your new partner.” and suddenly a furrow knit her brow and her eyes lit with indignation.

“Captain, can we talk in private?” she asked, barely concealing her anger.

“Nope, that's an order.”

“I can see that this is going to be the start of a beautiful friendship.” Rick quipped dryly

* * *

**January 9th 2009**

Kate Beckett and her father were just about done placing their flowers at her mother's grave when she thought she saw a familiar person enter the cemetery out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head to get a better look, and much to her chagrin, and her rising annoyance level, she realized, that yes, indeed it was Special Agent Richard Rodgers.

It was bad enough that he had to be assigned to her her precinct. Bad enough that he had been foisted upon her as her partner when the Captain knew she did her best work solo. To top it off, there was the nervous anxious feeling that she had seen him somewhere before. He looked familiar, but she couldn't quite place it. It made her frustrated and she didn't do well with frustrated.

Yesterday she had caught sight of him down in the archives when he thought she had gone to lunch. He'd been looking at her mother's case file. HER. Mother’s. CASE It had made her so angry that she had to ask to take a long lunch so she could cool down.

Now he had followed her here of all places, intruded on her time with her father on the anniversary of her mother’s death. The one day out of the whole stinking year that she took a personal day to deal with her grief alone with her dad. She could see that he had a bouquet of flowers in his hand and an enclosed votive candle.

“Why couldn't he just mind his own business?” she hissed under her breath so her dad couldn't hear She was about to rise from where she was sitting on the ground to go confront him, when he turned left toward the other side of the cemetery and continued away from where she and her father sat. He had passed within ten feet of her, but gave no indication that he had even seen her. Now that she realized he hadn't come to intrude upon her shared grief with her father, her unyielding curiosity got the better of her. Why was he here?

She placed a reassuring hand on her dad's shoulder to let him know she would be back in a moment and quietly crept in the direction where the cold, steely eyed FBI agent had gone. The small knoll was so secluded she nearly walked past it at first, but then caught sight of him on his knees arranging the two small bouquets of artificial roses pushing the stake of the enclosed votive into the ground and lighting it.

It seemed like a well established routine, much like the one she and her father had, but then she caught sight of his face in profile and her heart sunk in her chest. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. He was crying! Suddenly her heart was burning with shame for what she had intruded upon. Witnessing his private grief. His deep gut wrenching sorrow. Her heart softened for the man. Perhaps the two of them really weren't so different after all.

When she saw him begin rise to his feet and wipe away his tears, she hid until she saw him walk toward the exit of the cemetery and disappear. She quickly ran back to her mother's stone and pulled a single white Lily of the Valley from the flower arrangement she had brought .and returned to the small knoll. As she drew near enough to the small white headstone to read the inscription her heart nearly stopped in her chest. It wasn't a wife or a lover at all, she realized, it was so much worse.

_Alexis Marie Rodgers_   
_“Good night baby bird”_   
_10/4/1994-1/9/2002_

  
_'Oh God,'_ she thought to herself, _'I've misjudged him so very badly'_ Losing her mother was hard enough, but to lose a child so young, it tore at her heart. The absolute agony the man must carry around was now so clear to her, why hadn't she seen it? She placed the lily on the base of the small headstone and fled. Her small gesture seeming somehow inadequate in the face of her new partner's overwhelming grief. She swore to herself that she would try to be a little more understanding the next time she saw him.


	4. Partners

Special Agent Richard Rodgers stood alone in the 12th Precinct shooting range. The booming report from his .40 caliber Sig Sauer echoed through the place as he emptied first one clip reloaded, then another into alternately the center of the X ring and the center of the head of a target silhouette at the farthest reaches of the range.

As he fired through his last loaded clip for the Sig, he ejected the spent mag and dropped it on the table in front of him. From his back holster he produced his .45 caliber Glock, and opened up again. When the paper target was so shredded that half of it fell to the floor, he replaced it with a fresh one. His breathing was still coming in shallow angry gasps, in spite of the control of he exhibited with his weapons.

His first official case with the NYPD had been a heart wrenching child kidnapping case. A four year old girl with asthma who's father worked as a bank manager. Over the past week he had taken point during the negotiations. They'd gotten proof of life, but the parents didn't have the liquid capital to pay the ransom demand and the bank had a policy against paying out in these cases.

He'd slipped away from Beckett and gone to his bank. Not the credit union for his FBI payroll, but his “other” bank, where he withdrew the entire ransom demand from his Black Pawn money, a drop in the bucket, really. In non-sequential bills as instructed. Ryan had asked jokingly where he got it, but he sidestepped the issue. Beckett shadowed the mother through Central Park dressed as a jogger as she made the drop, but the kidnappers didn't release the girl.

When they'd traced them back to their hideout using the GPS tracking device in the duffel bag (these kidnappers really were amateurs at this) he found out why. The girl had had a massive asthma attack and had suffocated in the linen closet they had stashed her in to pick up the ransom money. He completely lost it when he saw the girl's body. It had taken not only Beckett, but Ryan and Esposito as well to drag him away from the man responsible.

Child kidnapping cases always had an emotional effect on him. He'd get single minded and nearly relentless in his pursuit to bring the child back alive and make sure the kidnappers were caught and punished severely. If it came to a choice, though, he always chose the life of the child over catching the kidnapper. To him it wasn't really a choice. Every year he got Christmas cards from the children he'd helped recover. They were the only ones he ever opened.

Beckett had offered to inform the girl's parents, she had eased up on him considerably in the past two weeks and he was touched that she would want to take this weight off of his shoulders, but he chose to break the bad news himself. As a father who had lost a child he understood their pain better than most, because he shared it.

She had come with him, of course, in a show of support for her partner. The look she gave him when he had turned his haunted eyes on her was the softest most tender look of empathy he had been directed at him since the medical examiner (a young woman named...Parrish if he remembered right) had zipped his daughter into a body bag seemingly a lifetime ago.

His hands shook with pent up rage. He'd tried the exercise room first, walked through the forms of Karate, Jiujitsu, then Krav Maga and when that had done nothing to help him find his center he wound up here. His hands shook so badly he couldn't get the loose rounds to slide into the magazine of his Sig. So intent was he on his task that he hadn't noticed Beckett had come looking for him.

* * *

Word had gotten out around the precinct that “Beckett's pet fed” was on a tear, first in the exercise room then at the shooting range. It hadn't taken long before the gossip got back to her. She bristled at the term “pet fed” the moment it came out of Hastings' mouth. He was her partner and a member of her team, and she didn't like Hastings' tone. A sentiment that was shared by both Ryan and Esposito.

Like everybody else, they had been apprehensive at first about having a federal agent on the team, but he and the boys had bonded over this case when they saw how dedicated he was to getting the girl back, and how enraged he had become when they learned that she was dead.

“He has a name you know, learn it!” Kate had shouted loud enough for the entire bullpen to hear. “He's a member of my team and by God you are going to treat him like one!” The looks she got from both Ryan and Espo told her they had her back on this. He was a fed, but he was their fed. She fixed her death glare on Hastings who had the good sense to at least appear ashamed of herself, collected her coat and purse and stalked for the elevator.

She slipped into the booth beside him, gently took the empty magazine out of his hands and slipped the loose rounds into it one at a time. Repeating the process with his two backup mags then the two for his Glock. She knew what it felt like to see a case go horribly wrong. She had been down this road more than once chasing a lead on her mother's murder only to see it go nowhere.

Courtesy of her epiphany in the cemetery two weeks ago, she knew this case was pushing all of the wrong buttons in her partner. It had tapped into the sense of loss he felt for the little girl who was buried there. She could see it written all over his face. A face she still found vaguely, hauntingly familiar.

“Thanks.” he said, as he slid a magazine into his Glock, engaged the safety and returned it to his back holster, slipping the spare mag into its pouch.

“It's what partners do.” she said quietly watching him do the same with his Sig and it's two spare magazines. She put on eye and ear protection as he pulled back the on the action of his Sig.

“Why the artillery and not a nine?”

She couldn't help but draw a comparison with the FBI agent she had dated a few years before, Will Sorenson, who carried a 9mm Glock.

“I was issued a 9mm Glock like everybody else at the academy.” he began, as he ran out the new target.

“My first day as a wet-behind-the-ears field agent we caught a domestic terror case. Abortion clinic fire bombings. We had the bomber cornered, and I was assigned to watch the back door to cut off his escape route. Guy came tear-assing out that back door at me with a machete. I don't know what he was on, but I emptied the whole clip into him and he still kept coming.”

Kate shuddered involuntarily, she'd learned the hard way in Vice that people hopped up on stimulants could be scary strong as Rick continued his story.

“The HRT sniper took him out, or I woulda been dead on the spot. The very next day, I turned my Glock 19 in for a Sig Sauer P229 and never looked back. I bought the Glock 30 a couple years later as a backup.”

Rick brought his Sig up into the Weaver stance, sighted on the target and squeezed off three rounds, straight through the middle of the X ring, leaving a single very large hole.

“From that day on, when I put somebody down, they stay there.”

As he brought his gun back, thumbed the safety and holstered it, Kate saw her opening and pressed on.

“This was more than just a case to you, wasn't it? I saw the look you gave the victim's parents, you share their pain.”

Rick looked at the floor for a moment, caught between a lie and the truth, and decided to go with the truth. He pulled out his wallet, fished a school photo out of it and handed it to Kate.

“Her name was Alexis.” he closed his eyes for a moment to force back the tears welling there.

“When she was six, she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. She was on two separate runs of chemo over the course of two years. One night she went to bed and when I went to wake her up the next morning, she was gone, her brief candle snuffed out before it's time.”

Kate handed him back the photo, finally able to put a face to the name on the stone, blinking back tears of her own. This was the little girl who had once breathed sunshine into his world, and when she was gone left only shadows behind. She knew the feeling well, and now realized that it was no coincidence that Captain Montgomery had thrown them together.

He was turning to leave, when she reached out her hand and and stopped him. He had been honest with her, she felt he deserved the same.

“About ten years ago, we were supposed to go to dinner,” she began in a hushed voice, “my mom, my dad and I. She was gonna meet us at the restaurant but she never showed. Two hours later we went home and there was a detective waiting for us...Detective...Raglan.”

The case file Jake had sent him swam unbidden into Rick's mind. One of the names that kept popping up was a Detective Raglan. It couldn't be a coincidence. He nodded his understanding as she continued.

“They found her body...she had been stabbed.”

“A robbery?” Rick asked. He already knew the answer, but knew she needed to finish.

“No...she still had her money and purse and her jewelry...and it wasn't a sexual assault either.” Kate took in a ragged breath, blinking back more tears and continued

“They attributed it to random gang violence...random wayward event. Unlike you, they couldn't think outside the box, so they just tried to package it up nicely..and her killer was never caught. My dad took her death hard. He's sober now...five years.”

She smiled weakly at that before pointing to the man's watch on her left wrist.

“I wear this for the life I saved” then pulled a gold chain out from the collar of her shirt, revealing a woman's wedding band on the end of it, “and this is for the life that I lost.” a single tear coursed down her cheek.

“That was you and your father at the cemetery, wasn't it?” Rick asked

“Yeah,” Kate replied, “we go every year.”

“I hadn't been in a while,” Rick said quietly, “My mother lives here, she usually comes out on the 9th and takes care of things. After I got the transfer orders, I figured I'd do it myself this year.”

“So, Rodgers, you've hit the exercise room and now shooting range, where are you headed next?” Kate asked, trying to lighten the mood.

“Home, I guess, there's a glass of Scotch and a warm bed with my name on em.” He replied, “You?”

“A glass of wine, a hot bath, and a good book.” Kate replied.

“Good night, Kate.”

“Night, Rick.”

* * *

**Two hours later**   
**Kate Beckett's Apartment**

Kate Beckett finished lighting the various scented candles she kept in her bathroom, slid off her light satin robe and stepped slowly into her tub. She sighed softly as she lowered her tired body into the water and reached for the book she had chosen for the evening. Richard Castle's swan song, Storm Fall. She waited a few moments for her muscles to begin to relax in the hot water and suds before she opened the book to the dedication page.

_For Alexis._   
_10/4/1994-1/9/2002_   
_Goodnight, my little angel._

Her eyes went wide as the realization dawned. All of a sudden, it hit her why the date on the tombstone had seemed so familiar. It was right here before her in black and white. She closed the book and looked at the photo of a smiling Richard Castle on the back of the dust cover. Now that she was really looking at it, the smile on his face also never reached the eyes, in her mind she added a Van Dyke beard and saw the face of her new partner.

She had wondered for eight years where Richard Castle had gone, and why he had stopped writing. Now she had her answer. It was the same reason she had quit law school, given up on her dreams and became a cop. In those dark times, his words had saved her life, filled her with a new purpose.

Three years later his own tragedy had struck, and his words could neither save him nor bring him comfort in his darkest hour as they had for her. She gingerly set the book down and wept bitterly for the man. The true scope of the tragedy that had befallen him now fully laid bare before her. A tragic tale made even more poignant to her because it mirrored her own.


End file.
